Campaign Mastery

On any number of occasions, I’ve referred to using a Cinematic combat style instead of the “full treatment”, but I’ve never gone into detail of how I go about that. I’ve explained why, but never how. (just in case, I’ll recap “why” as we go along). I’ve always resisted doing so because I felt that […]

In this series, I’ve been looking into the subject of Game Physics. Part one examined what a ‘game physics’ is, and what one can be used for. Part two focused in on one particular application, the generation and validation of House Rules. In this third part, the subject is the relationship between Game Physics and […]

How do you make Big Dungeons interesting? It’s not a simple proposition; very dependent on your source material, you may have to dig far deeper into what you have been presented with in order to achieve success. This question comes from Tom, who wrote: I DM a Pathfinder game, where the module is coming to […]

In part one of this series, I demonstrated that a pause or interruption in play can be enormously beneficial, if used correctly. Last week’s article examined before-pause and after-pause content and found that these had to match in order to extract that benefit, and that the type and length of pause was a critical variable […]

It’s not easy making a completely fresh start. This series has examined the process of creating a new campaign in detail, and at last, the new campaign is ready for the curtain to lift and the show to begin – right? Right? This isn’t the first time it has seemed that way since this series […]

Having established in part one of this series that a pause or interruption to play or to the primary plot being deployed within the game can be more than a necessary inconvenience, it can be a tool whose manipulation by a savvy GM or TV producer can enhance the game or production, it’s time to […]

It’s not easy making a completely fresh start. This series examines the systematic process of creating a new campaign in detail, from start to finish. The contents (updated with each post) can be found in “part zero” of the series. Bone, Cartilage, and Flesh: A metaphor Everything that’s been done so far has been in […]

A History Lesson: The ANZACs This Saturday marks the 100th anniversary of a seminal date in Australian History. April 25, 1915 was the day the Gallipoli campaign began, part of World War I, “The War to end All Wars”. Intended to drive the Ottoman Empire out of the First World War with a single bold […]

It’s not easy making a completely fresh start. This series examines the process of creating a new campaign in detail. So far, we have a campaign plan and a development plan for the game world along with a schedule for that development. We’re now dotting i’s and crossing t’s and building up the foundations of […]

It started in the course of a planning session for the next adventure in the Adventurer’s Club (Pulp) campaign, “Prison Of Jade”. We were fleshing out the villain’s motivations, and I (Mike) made a comment about the nature of Evil. Blair disagreed, saying “I don’t think that’s true evil at all” (or words to that […]

Character Motivation can be the hardest thing to unlock for any character, and yet the most useful. Knowing a character’s motivation can provide a cohesiveness of personality and decision-making context that simplifies the complex task of getting under an NPC or PCs skin down to one or two basic issues and their ramifications. Knowing why […]

I was incredibly tired after Co-GMing on Saturday – while the game session went well, this was only the second time that I have GM’d since undertaking a regime to control my blood sugar after the recent Diabetes diagnosis, and it took a lot more out of me than I expected. In fact, I ended […]